Staring At The Sun
by Magick
Summary: Lily and Hermione, how they are similar. From the POV of a man who loved them both. A little bit sad. SSLE, HGSS. Inspired by angelguardian777's 'The Haunted' music video on youtube.


Disclaimer- I do not own any anything, it all belong's to JK Rowling, Im just borrowing them.

Wow... back to the HP fandom, after an amazingly long absence. Just an introspective piece, from the point of view of Severus Snape. It could be at any point, really. Reviews are very very appreciated, constructive criticism, ect. I want to know what you want to see.

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Everyone used to believe that they would make the perfect couple. The brainy Know-It-All, and the Boy Wonder that could do no wrong. The Blessed couple of Gryffindor... Everyone thought so, and in many ways, I think they came to believe it themselves. But from the first, he was too blinded by his own importance, to see how incredible she was. Her bright mind and quick wit, setting her as a respectable challenge for any man.

I would not have thought she would be any great beauty. With hair that defied gravity, and teeth that would have done a chipmunk proud... But even the most brilliant of us can be proven wrong. And while she may not be a classic, not the type of woman to stop traffic- but the tilt of her head, that curl over her left eye that constantly falls into her face (I don't even think she notices it anymore.) the impish gleam that lights up her eyes... No, she may never be a candidate for Witch Weekly, but she is beautiful to me.

The kind of perfection that is impossible to plan, never to be repeated. She is what reminds me to keep fighting.

And she reminds me of her. Of the first woman I ever dared let myself care for... To love, though I am now loathe to admit it. With that red hair, and those damn eyes that now look at me from the sockets of her only child. People think I hate him because he reminds me of his father. I won't correct them, though it couldn't be farther from the truth.

I hate him because he is the living proof that she chose him. The genetic blend of my tormentor, and the woman that brought joy into my empty existance. The dungeons were cold, and when she left- I believe I took that frigid air into myself, without even knowing it.

And so became the very thing I despised, but too late.

Lily, my Lily, for a time at least. She accomplished in death, what she had never managed in life.

_Severus, Im sorry.. It's just that you're changing, and I don't like the person you're becoming. And James is good to me, he really is. Makes me laugh, but I guess you already knew that. I want to say that we can be friends, but please, please dearest, get away from Lucius. He's poisoning you, and.._

And I never let her finish that sentence. Too broken to see reason, and too stubborn to allow myself to believe what she said. The last time I ever spoke to her, and the night before I threw in my lot with the rest of them. The night of my initiation into the ranks of the Deatheaters. A desperate bid for the companionship that had been taken so abruptly from me.

The loss of Lily was the end of the first phase of my life. I can admit that now, after searching the bottoms of many a bottle of Old Ogdens whiskey. And I believed I would never meet another like her. The days slowly turned into weeks, even slower into months.

Then 11 years in the blink of an eye. And like everything, it seems, I didn't recognize the similarities until much later. Harry pines for a mother he never knew, feasting on the stories of Remus and Black, never knowing that the girl sitting next to him, is as close a personality as he will ever find. The Lily to his own mirror image of his father. And this is why I believe that so many people believed them so well-suited.

A way to make a miracle love, out of the ruins of one ended too brutally.

I suppose it seems that I love her only for the ways they are the same, but that isn't accurate at all. For I love her for all that she is, her own merit. her mind and her kindness. Kindness I am sure I shall never find bestowed upon myself. Not that I deserve it.

The things I have done in the past can never be attoned for. I know that this life is to be lived in pain, but I admit, I secretly hope that this will cleanse my soul of all ill Karma... That my next life may be better. I don't know if I believe in reincarnation, but I have to hope that something shall be better then this endless agony.

'Joy' seems like a textbook definintion, not a feeling I can relate to. Too many horrors have erased the sweet memories of Lily. I am nearing middle age, and though I have tried, I can't recall a single wholly good moment.

And in her, I see the bliss that I have longed for, eternally, it seems. I am not a martyr, but if my suffering could pave the road to make her life better, then I would take all the ill and evil in her life. Having her near is light, and beauty to a man that had known only bleak and barren glacial coldness- where nothing of good could ever grow.

She is this blind and jaded man's eyes. My hope, when I thought that such an emotion was lost to me forever. She is perfection, not because she is perfect- but because, (I can admit this just once) I love her hopelessly.

So my cruel indifference to her may seem odd to some, not to me. Because the pain does not seem so terrible when it is all you have, and the dark not so black, when you can't remember light.

Like looking in through the windows. A deaf man surrounded by music, only he cannot hear.

My Stigmata. My Hermione.

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A/N- Clarification for the last line... Stigmatics are believed to be blessed by God, and yet they are tormented by their own devils and visions of evil.


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